AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Efma, an association of 3,300 retail financial services companies in
more than 130 countries, and Accenture (NYSE:ACN) have announced the
winners of their third annual Global Distribution & Marketing Innovation
Awards for financial services. The program, jointly launched by Efma and
Accenture, recognizes financial services firms for the most-innovative
projects and initiatives in distribution and marketing.

The winners were selected by a combination of votes from a panel of
judges comprised exclusively of senior retail bankers from around the
world and online votes from Efma members.

“Innovation is the only way for banks to succeed in an industry that is
undergoing a profound transformation, and it’s interesting to note that
since we launched this award program, many of the innovators recognized
by these awards in previous years were from emerging markets,” said
Piercarlo Gera, global managing director of Accenture
Distribution and Marketing Services. “This new breed of banks is
made of players that invest in digital innovation and are making real
impact in terms of customer experience enhancement.”

This year’s winners are:

Denizbank, Turkey, won the Global Innovator of the Year award
for its digital banking model, which includes Facebook banking; Direct
Message, which accepts credit applications through Twitter; and its
fastPay mobile wallet application.

Idea Bank, Poland, won two awards – the Most Disruptive
Innovation and the Digital Distributionawards – for
its Idea Cloud, Europe’s first banking cloud. Idea Cloud enables the
bank’s small- and medium-sized enterprise clients to administer
accounts, payments, documents and client data – as well as conduct
ebanking – from a single cloud platform.

mBank, Poland, won the Digital Marketing award for its
real-time marketing platform, which enabled the bank to identify an
additional 300,000 sales leads per month by analyzing card
transaction, Web traffic and geolocation data about its customers and
presenting relevant offers to them based on that data.

KBC Securities, Belgium, won the Best New Product or Service
award for Bolero Crowdfunding, a crowdfunding website enabling
startups and established businesses to obtain financing from
investors. Bolero is the bank’s online stock trading platform.

POLSKI STANDARD PLATNOSCI, Poland, a consortium of several
Polish banks, won the Best Innovation in Payments award for its
mobile payments standard, which generates a digital code enabling
mobile payments, ATM withdrawals and point-of-service payments by
phone, and online payments.

Nedbank, South Africa, won the Big Data & Analyticsaward
for Market Edge, its data analytics tool that enables merchants to
gain insights into their customers’ shopping behaviors using a
Web-based platform that provides data on customers’ card transactions,
income segment and demographics.

ICICI Bank, India, won the Sustainable Business award
for its digital village initiative in Akodara, which allows residents
to open savings accounts without submitting physical documents,
transfer funds by mobile phone and pay for goods without cash. The
bank is also digitizing school records and providing digital access to
telemedicine, which gives villagers remote access to health care.

Patrick Desmarès, Efma’s secretary general, said, “As we reviewed the
500 innovations submitted this year, we realized that banks are finally
entering the age of customer-driven innovation. At a time when
competition is intense, banks must offer relevant, personalized and
seamless experiences across channels to attract and retain
customers. The winning institutions are innovating to provide a better
customer experience and develop stronger customer relationships.”

“This year’s winners confirm that banks in all corners of the globe are
responding to the universal rise of – and fully embracing – digital,
which is absolutely critical today given changing customer behaviors,
new regulations and emerging competition from new entrants,” said Gera.
“Like with our Fintech
Innovation Labs, our objective with this award program is to nurture
and foster digital innovation in financial services.”

As a global not-for-profit organization, Efma brings together more than
3,300 retail financial services companies from over 130 countries. With
a membership base consisting of almost a third of all large retail banks
worldwide, Efma has proven to be a valuable resource for the global
industry, offering members exclusive access to a multitude of resources,
databases, studies, articles, news feeds and publications. Efma also
provides numerous networking opportunities through working groups,
online communities and international meetings. For more information: www.efma.com
or info@efma.com.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company, with more than 358,000 people serving clients in
more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience,
comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions,
and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies,
Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance
businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of
US$31.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2015. Its home page
is www.accenture.com.